


We Drink From the Fountain

by Amatara



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Amnesia, Background Lucy Moran, Deliberate Plot Vagueness, Friendship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Implied Albert Rosenfield/Dale Cooper, Implied Past Albert Rosenfield/Harry Truman, Implied Past Dale Cooper/Harry Truman, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 16:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10902948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amatara/pseuds/Amatara
Summary: It's a long road back towards the light, and they don't have the luxury of starting over... but maybe what they had will carry them through. Diane, Coop and Albert, finding each other again after twenty-five years.





	We Drink From the Fountain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AgentDianeEvans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentDianeEvans/gifts).



> Written for the [WONDERFULxSTRANGE](http://countdowntotwinpeaks.tumblr.com/wonderfulxstrange) fanworks exchange over on tumblr. For the prompt 'Cooper and Diane talk about where Coop was for 25 years.' I tried to write the most hopeful version of events I could think of that still felt in keeping with the spirit of the show; I hope I managed...
> 
> ETA: I adore Lucy, so I took the liberty of writing her into this and indulging in a bit of wishful thinking. I'll be jossed, obviously, but let's just pretend we don't know that for sure yet, okay? And of course I couldn't forget Harry, whose fate here is largely based on The Secret History of Twin Peaks, though a lot is left open still.

 

It was a text, not a phone call, bearing the news, which was trademark Albert. Diane had never met an emotion she didn’t rush into, arms wide, and Albert had never met one he couldn’t sterilize and dissect and then bury so deep it couldn’t hope to see daylight again. It was who they were and how they survived, so she wasn’t about to hold that against him. Still, there was no way to read what he’d written and not wonder what had been going through his mind.

_We found him. He’s alive. Can’t talk now, but call the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s station. Ask for Moran, she’ll explain. AR_

No need to ask who ‘him’ referred to. Apart from Albert himself, Diane could only think of one man who had ties with Twin Peaks, even if he hadn’t been seen there in twenty-five years. All that time, she’d never stopped hoping... although, despite her refusal to move on from the loss, at some point she had stopped raging against it. But not Albert. He’d vowed to find Dale, dead or alive, and since the one thing surpassing Albert’s cynicism was his capacity for stubbornness, a minor detail like the passage of decades wasn’t about to stop him. Seemed he’d just been proven right.

The first thing she did was cry - messily, for about two minutes, rocking back and forth on the windowsill with tears running down her face and into the collar of her blouse.

The second was get her purse, then spend the next two minutes fixing her makeup until she could pass for a professional again.

The third thing she did was make the call.

Moran turned out to be the Sheriff, a lady with a voice like curdled milk who greeted her like a long-lost relative, then launched into a meandering tale that left her ears ringing. But, tempted as she got, she made no attempt to cut the woman short. It was obvious Moran cared, and Diane knew as well as anyone that talking - even to a stranger, or a tape recorder - was just another way to cope. Besides, the gist of the story was clear enough, even if it also sounded too outlandish for words.

Dale was alive. Albert had tracked him down to Twin Peaks. And word was he'd been possessed by some serial killer's spirit - a claim she’d have thought ludicrous, except according to Moran it was Albert’s claim and he had the evidence to back it up. Whatever had happened, Dale’s mind seemed to be his own again _,_ though how they’d determined that was anybody’s guess. But it was a start.

The next morning she was on a flight to Seattle, two weeks’ worth of clothes stuffed into her suitcase and a bagful of old tapes hoarded under her seat.

The address she’d been given was on the outskirts of town: more a cabin than a house, it squatted at the center of weed-covered grounds, shabby but still breathing character. Diane left the rental car in the driveway, then picked her way towards the front porch, struggling to haul her luggage across the gravel. The doorbell rang tinny and loud, more nails across the blackboard of her already jangled nerves.

The thirty seconds or so until she heard a key turn were some of the longest of her life.

“Albert? Oh…” He looked gaunt, skin stretched taut over skull and his clothes slightly baggy, as if he’d lost more weight than was healthy for him. The right side of his jaw sported a large, purpling bruise, and he had circles under his circles. But his face, when he saw her, was drenched in relief.

"Diane.” He’d aged since their last meeting, but his voice was still that familiar brand of angry-yet-affectionate. “You got here faster than I thought.”

She hugged her coat around herself. “After twenty-five years… I couldn't waste another day. You understand, don’t you?”

The nod Albert gave her was almost grudging, the effort behind it palpable. Diane watched him gulp down a breath, then press a hand to his gut, his throat working. She’d expected to be ushered in and handed the facts straight up, but instead Albert - who hated forced physical contact, the last person on Earth Diane would touch without permission - let out a low, dragged-out sigh, raised his eyes to the heavens, and opened his arms to her.

Impulse carried her the last two steps across the threshold, into the embrace.

They must have been a sight to see - overdressed woman long past her prime, wrapped into the arms of scruffy older man - and that Albert didn’t even care who was watching told her how much he needed this. _Growing mellow, old boy?_ But she didn’t say it. Not when there was no way to pretend that hugging him back didn’t steady her too.

“Dale. Is he…?” She broke the contact, letting her hands slide across his shoulders. His eyes looked puffy, but there were no obvious injuries apart from the one on his jaw. “Tell me what happened. Please.”

Albert nodded. "Inside. C’mon.” He grabbed her suitcase before she could stop him, leaving her to trundle along with the rest of her bags. There was a gaggle of boxes in the front hall, as if someone had started to clear out the place, then given up halfway through. “Careful of the mess,” he pointed. “It was like this when I arrived. Owner isn’t in, so I cleaned up best I could.”

“You know the owner?” She navigated a path across the cluttered hardwood floor.

Noncommittal grunt. “Truman. Harry. He’s been… Well, let’s say he’s out of town and unlikely to come calling, but he gave me a key once, just in case. I didn’t think I’d ever end up using it.”

“Truman… The old Sheriff?” The way Albert had said ‘once’ made Diane wonder how far back they were talking. That, and of course, people didn’t just hand their door keys to a random acquaintance - not that it was any business of hers. “Dale mentioned him in some of his tapes.”

“Yeah. The same.” This time, there was no mistaking the melancholy in Albert’s tone. “He lived here until he skipped town. It’s not a mansion, but better than staying at a motel. At least this place has a functioning kitchen.”

Diane followed him into the living room, which was less cluttered than the hallway, if not by much. “You’re here by yourself, you and Dale?” Terse nod. “Albert, you should have told me. I would have brought food, or…”

“We’re fine. Lucy Moran went shopping for groceries.”

Diane blinked. “You got the Sheriff running errands for you?”

“Well, she offered.” Albert shrugged. “Said she’d once kept a list of Cooper’s favorite baked goods, and remembering it was a matter of pride. I hope you enjoy jelly donuts; kitchen’s piled high with 'em. Other stuff too. We won’t be going hungry, though we might end up needing to have our stomachs pumped.” He waved her over towards an ancient-looking couch, picking an equally tattered armchair for himself. “Lucy’s… an old friend. It’s a long story.”

Diane nodded. “I’d like to hear it, when there’s time.” She took off her coat and slung it across the couch, then planted herself onto its blessedly yielding surface. After all those hours stuck in a seat - plane first, then car - her spine was begging for relief, but she forced herself to keep her back straight and her expression neutral. Not that Albert would be fooled. “How is Dale?” she asked again. “Where has he been all these years? Is he hurt?”

Albert’s face was a study in barely leashed frustration. “Half of those I can’t even answer properly, but I’ll try. Want the full story or the abridged version?”

Diane thought about it. “Short version. You can talk me through the details after I’ve seen him… _If_ I can see him,” she finished weakly. That Dale was here and not in some local hospital made her assume he was in fair shape, but she could think of plenty of reasons why Albert wanted to keep this under wraps. Best not get her hopes up.

“He’s resting.” Albert gestured at the door behind her, leading off to what might be an office or a drawing room. “Not asleep, I reckon; I don’t think he slept a wink since we arrived.” Which meant Albert probably hadn’t slept either, but of course he’d never admit that out loud. “Seems lucid enough. Mild fever, but no other symptoms. Like his body’s fighting off something, or coming to grips with something, or… well. You can ask him yourself, for all the good it’ll do. He remembers nothing at all from those twenty-five years. Nada. Zilch.” Albert raised a hand to his face, dragging his palm across his temple. “Nothing that happened in the real world, anyway. Or should I say ‘this world’, because apparently there are others, and Cooper was trapped in one of them. His mumbo-jumbo, not mine.”

“Another world?” Diane echoed. “Do you believe him?”

“I don’t know what to believe. He’s a goddamn innocent, Diane. You wouldn’t think so from looking at him, but he’s the same Coop who went missing all those years ago, give or take a few psychological bumps and bruises that I’m spectacularly unqualified to diagnose. Including amnesia. Man didn’t even know what a fucking smartphone was.” Albert closed his eyes and breathed out through his teeth. “Well. It may be better like this. I can’t imagine what he’d be going through if he did remember it all, the way Leland Palmer did before he kicked the bucket. But of all the outcomes I imagined…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

Diane stared hard at the carpet, her mind spinning with questions: why had Dale come back to Twin Peaks, how had Albert found him, was he truly, as Moran had suggested, possessed…? But all of that could wait. For now, nothing mattered except recovery. Not just for Dale, but for the rest of them too.

“Hey,” she said, then waited for Albert’s eyes to crack open. “We’re going to get through this, you hear? One step at a time.” A half-hearted shrug was all the reply she got. “Albert? How long since you last slept?”

“Don’t know.” Another shrug. “Don’t know if it matters.”

“Not to you, maybe, but it does to me.” And now she was bossing him around, but damned if bluntness wasn’t the only way to get through to him. “You look dead on your feet. You should get some rest - for his sake, if not yours. If sleep sounds too ambitious, then lie down at least. Meanwhile I’ll check in on Dale. I’m sure we’ll have plenty to talk about.”

She could pinpoint the exact moment his resistance crumbled - much sooner than she’d expected, without any attempt to derail her with some burst of creative profanity. Which answered several of her questions at once.

“Fine,” he muttered. “But I’m not moving from this room, and the moment you even _think_ something’s not right, you scream.” It was a statement of fact, not a question, sealed by an exchange of glances as Diane got to her feet.

She hoisted her travel bag onto her shoulder, squeezed Albert’s arm in passing. That earned her a coarse-sounding grumble, which was somehow more comforting than a smile would have been.

It was only at the door that she hesitated, hand hovering over the knob.

Some people were afraid of Dale Cooper. That wasn’t a new thing. Even back when he’d just been the new kid at the Bureau, a bright-eyed, raven-haired sprite charming everybody’s pants off just by existing, he’d had a reputation of being… uncanny. Endearing, yes, but also strange and unpredictable and painfully sincere, in a way that made people wary. Diane had never shared the sentiment, but she could see where it came from. For all the light that shone off Dale, there had always been a sense of darkness there too. Of danger. Then, twenty-five years ago, that darkness had finally caught up with him… but she wasn’t about to let that scare her off now. Not when she could tell Albert wasn’t afraid of him either. Just _for_ him, which meant she couldn’t afford to balk either.

That thought, along with Albert’s gaze boring into her shoulder blades, finally gave her the strength to open the door.

Unlike the other room, this one was empty of clutter: just a cupboard, a couch, some chairs and a table, along with a folding bed in one corner, its only sign of recent occupation a few dimpled patches in the sheets. The couch was holding a man-sized bundle that Diane might have mistaken for a pile of blankets, if not for the single bare foot dangling out from under it.

Shuffling in closer, she could hear the sound of rhythmic breathing. So he _was_ asleep, despite what Albert had thought. From this angle, she could see a shock of hair sticking out above the blankets: not the shiny black it used to be, but a dappled grey threaded with white.

When she shifted her weight, a floorboard creaked. A tiny sound, but the shape under the blankets stirred, uncoiling like a butterfly from a cocoon - beautiful but heartrendingly fragile.

For the first couple of seconds, he just stared right through her. Diane found herself staring back, taking in the planes of his face: familiar, yet subtly different. He still looked younger somehow than Albert and her, despite the new lines crisscrossing his skin and the pepper-and-salt locks framing his forehead. As his eyes focused, it was all she could do not to rush in and throw her arms around him, if only to prove to herself he was real. Holding back was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.

“I know you,” Dale said, his voice thick with sleep. He sat up straighter, the blankets pooling in his lap as his feet touched the floor. “But I can’t remember…” He frowned, then his eyes widened. “ _Oh._ ” Recognition dawned, and he sagged back against the pillows. “Diane?”

“Yes,” she said, and then, “ _Dale_ ,” savoring the name on her tongue, as if just saying it was enough to make things right again. She was under no illusion that it would. But at least he still remembered her. “It’s good to see you,” she breathed, all pretense at neutrality gone. It took an effort to keep her voice steady. “Can I… sit down?”

Dale sat frozen for a moment, then nodded. “Albert said there would be a visitor. He didn’t mention who.” He sounded hoarse, his tone just a touch deeper than it used to be - although too-frequent exposure to Dale’s tapes meant that by now, her memory of his real voice was irreversibly warped.

She pulled up a chair and lowered herself onto it, leaving her bag on the floor between them. “I’m sorry if I woke you. Albert said you’d been having trouble sleeping.”

“I did… I _do_ ,” Dale said, correcting himself. “But I heard your voice after Albert left to get the door.” A tight smile flickered across his features. “I admit to not recognizing it at the time, yet it felt… familiar. Soothing. I must have dozed off while you and Albert talked.”

“I’m sorry,” Diane said again, doing her best not to fidget. The source of Albert’s unease was starting to dawn on her now. It was like looking through a fractured window: if you squinted, you could still make out the shape of who Dale Cooper used to be, but it was impossible not to notice the cracks as well. He’d changed. Maybe not in a dangerous way - her gut told her this Dale wasn’t any more capable of harming her than the old one had been - but the incongruity of it was making her head hurt. It wasn’t just that he’d aged, but that he seemed… alien. Distant. As if he didn’t quite belong here, which wasn’t a new feeling, but right now it was stronger than ever. Did Albert have him on some medication? She hadn’t remembered to ask. “Why don’t you go back to sleep?” she ventured. “I’ll come back after…”

“ _No!_ Stay. Please.” The outburst was short, the panic behind it a gut-punch. “Please. I can’t be left alone. It isn’t safe. Not until I know I can trust myself.” The eyes that met hers were large and terrified, the thin veneer of composure stripped away. “Diane…” He gulped down a breath, clearly struggling to collect himself. “What did Albert tell you about me?”

Diane blinked down at her hand, which she’d started to reach out to him, and forced herself to pull it back. “Not much,” she admitted. “I wanted to see you first. He did say you were having trouble remembering. That we still don’t know where you were after you went missing, and how maybe you weren’t even here but someplace else. Another world, he called it. But I didn’t understand what he meant, and something tells me he didn't know either.”

Dale shook his head, pale and small and hunched in on himself. “How could he? Albert spent a lifetime trusting only the evidence of his own eyes, and for good reason. How can I ask him to accept what I can barely grasp myself? That wouldn’t be fair.” He shivered. “To either of you.”

“Well, try us,” Diane said, pressing away a surge of anger. Not at Dale, but at whatever monster - human or otherwise - had had its way with him and then spat him out. She dug her nails into her palms, trying to ignore how frantic she must be sounding. “You can ask anything of me, Dale. I’m sure that goes for Albert, too. He may paint himself as quite the cynic, but he’s the one who refused to give up on you, you know.”

“I know,” Dale said, but in a tone filled with wonder - as if, for a moment, he’d managed to forget.

“Then don’t underestimate him. Or me. If you tell me what happened, we can take it from there, all right? Why can’t you trust yourself? What did you _do?_ ”

“I… can’t be certain.” Dale hitched the blanket back up to his chest, his thumb scratching rhythmically across the fabric. She could see him struggle to gather the pieces of himself, put them back into a semblance of order; the result looked shaky, but more or less functional. “The only facts in my possession are these: in Twin Peaks, the night Windom took Annie, I gained passage to a place of ancient and terrible power. That same night, two souls passed from that realm into ours. One was Annie Blackburn, the other a man who wore my face, but - and here my facts end and conjecture begins - doesn’t appear to have been me, because I have no memory of his actions. He walked this Earth for twenty-five years, no doubt inflicting countless cruelties. Until Albert stopped him.”

“And brought you back,” Diane said, bunching her hands into the fabric of her skirt. As far-fetched as that story sounded, her gut told her it was true, at least from Dale’s perspective. “But back from where? And who took your place?” Lucy Moran had wielded terms like ‘inhabiting spirit’, but Diane had no idea what that even meant. “A man, you said, but how can a man…” She trailed off, not even sure what questions to ask.

“Not a man,” Dale conceded. “An entity, or a concept made flesh because we empowered it, or both. We know that it calls itself BOB, but little more.”

“A concept.” Diane could hear the doubt in her own voice.

“Something Albert once theorized. ‘Perhaps BOB is just the evil that men do.’” The hand Dale raised to his forehead was trembling slightly, despite the measured cadence of his words. “We like to think of evil as an outside force, something that exists as separate from ourselves. But we all carry evil inside of us. Perhaps everything BOB does is channel that which is already there… which is a thought that keeps haunting me, Diane. I am flesh and blood; inevitably there is darkness within me, but if I had resisted longer, fought harder to contain it…”

“Dale, no.” Diane felt like she was wading through molasses, but she couldn’t let that hold her back. “I know you. You don’t just give up when the going gets rough. If this… _BOB_ … was too strong and you lost the fight, it must have meant you had no other way out.”

“Neither did Laura, but she found one anyway.” He paused, clearly expecting some response, but all Diane managed was a confused stare. “Laura Palmer. Rather than let darkness claim her, she allowed herself to be killed - by her father, Leland, another vessel of BOB.” Dale clutched at the blanket still covering his knees. “Of all of us, Laura was the only one with perfect courage. And while I hardly deserved it, because I fell short where she prevailed… I’m convinced she saved my life.”

“Dale,” Diane said, as gently as she could. “Laura Palmer was dead when you arrived in Twin Peaks.”

Dale nodded. “They showed me her body. I witnessed her burial. But I also saw her and touched her and spoke with her - the real Laura, not an illusion or a dream. She was the one person in that place I could trust. Even the dark Laura… as much as she suffered, she never once attempted to harm me.”

Diane swallowed. Was this how breakdowns started? She’d never imagined it being like this, but then, Dale had never fit any standard molds. "Okay,” she tried, “maybe we should -”

“I realize this sounds absurd, Diane, but I promise you, it’s the truth as I know it. I can’t describe to you where I was except in the vaguest terms, but I do know that Laura was there. With me.” For some reason, he wasn’t looking at her but past her, as if seeing something behind her that she couldn’t. “Sometimes she was screaming, dripping blood from her lips, writhing against a pain that could not be contained. Other times, when she touched me… I could almost believe there was hope. For both of us.” His voice was a small, broken thing, but there was a reverence in it that made the hairs on Diane’s arms stand on end. “While everything in that place was trying to tear me limb from limb, Laura was the one who helped keep me whole. I wouldn’t be here if not for her.”

“I see,” Diane said, and then, seeing the pain in his eyes, “I’m sorry she didn’t make it.”

Impossibly, a tiny smile lit his face. “But she did make it. Not physically, but she was at peace, at the end. That’s all she ever wanted for herself.” The half-smile faded, turned into a grimace. “Diane?” he said, then shivered, the tremor running through his entire body. “Could I… have some water, please?”

Diane was on her feet in a second. “Yes, of course. Or something warm? I think I saw a thermos of coffee in the other room…” She cut herself off as she saw Dale’s jaw clench. “Water,” she corrected. “Coming right up.”

There were glasses and a bottle on the table - probably left there by Albert, bless his old, battered heart. She poured Dale his water and then had some herself, furiously scrubbing at her eyes between swallows.

Albert was right. This Dale _was_ an innocent, but not in the way she’d thought. It wasn’t that he had no memories, but that they were all twisted. Like those stories of children lost in the woods and raised by wolves, only to be found again years later. Except Dale hadn’t spent his lost years living with wolves. He’d spent them fighting ghouls and demons.

Walking back to the couch, spine straight, glass in hand, she was so focused on her own scattered thoughts that for a moment she didn’t see.

Dale was crying. Still as a statue, in perfect silence, not even a hitch in his breathing that could have warned her of the tears.

“Dale?” Her voice cracked in a way that was utterly undignified, but she’d never cared less about dignity in her life. “Honey, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Whether it was the _honey_ , slipping out before she realized, or simply being spoken to, it was enough to make Dale raise his head. He looked dazed, as if pulled from a dream, eyes red-rimmed and wetness coating his cheeks.

“I was thinking of Laura,” he whispered. “All this time, she was the only kind soul in my existence. I hadn’t thought…” A sob this time, a real one, racking his chest as he listed precariously. “She’s free now, and I’m here, and I miss her, Diane. I don’t belong here, I don’t know what -”

“Shhh.” She sat down next to him, carefully putting the glass of water on the floor.  Every sinew in her body ached to take him in her arms, but there was no telling how he’d react to that now. Instead she took his hand and drew it into her lap, letting her other arm circle his waist. From the way his eyes widened, she might as well have tried to ravish him. “Hey...” She squeezed his palm. “Is this alright?”

Dale shivered, but his hand tightened on hers. “This flesh was used for evil, Diane.” He sounded nauseated, the lines in his face as harsh as if they had been chiseled in. “You may think it deserving of kindness, but it isn’t. That I don’t know what harm was done with my body doesn’t negate the fact harm was done in the first place.” For all the anguish in his voice, he still hadn’t pulled away, and Diane groped for something - anything - to cast out as an anchor.

 “Dale... your body was taken from you. Wasn’t it you who always said the body is only a vessel?” Not that Diane had ever been convinced, but at this point she’d accept just about anything. “If it looks like Dale Cooper, but doesn’t act or feel like Dale Cooper, then it’s not Dale Cooper, is it? I don’t think BOB is deserving of kindness, but _you_ are, and there’s nothing in this room, mind or body, that doesn’t feel like you right now.”

She couldn’t tell if the sound escaping him was a chuckle or a sob. “Diane, _I_ don’t even feel like me anymore.” But his hand was solid in hers, his cheek a warm, moist pressure against her shoulder. “Albert… he didn’t touch me, except to check me for injuries. He never said it, but I could feel the conflict inside him. The fear.” His voice was hoarse with grief. “I can’t say I blame him.”

_Of course you wouldn’t_. And neither could she, knowing Albert’s history. “Albert built his life on the hope of finding you. Frankly, I’d be concerned if he wasn’t struggling. Give him some time to get used to the idea that what he got back isn’t the same as what he lost. Or…” She hesitated. “As what he’d been expecting to find.”

Dale stirred, uneasy. “What was he expecting?”

“How about your corpse?”

She felt him stiffen, the hand in her lap spasming. “My… _Oh._ ” He flinched and sagged forward, the color draining from his face. “I keep forgetting… time worked differently there. Just one endless night, with dawn perpetually out of reach. When Albert said it’s been twenty-five years, I had to look into a mirror to believe it.”

Diane suppressed a snort of joyless laughter. “Well, you can look at me too. No way to mistake me for a young woman, is there?”

A wan smile touched Dale’s lips. Diane braced herself for an instinctive attempt at prevarication, but instead he breathed: “I prayed to you.”

“You… What?”

“I remember now,” he said, so quietly she had to strain to hear it. “Laura kept me going, but Laura rarely spoke. After a while, I began to forget the sound of my own voice. So I talked to _you,_  except it wasn’t truly talking. One talks to a person who exists - removed in distance, perhaps, yet still real. But by then, I was no longer certain if you were. If any of my old life had ever been. So I… prayed, never knowing if my prayers would reach you.”

“They might have,” Diane said, struggling to talk past the lump in her throat. “Maybe I didn’t realize it at the time, but you’re not the only one who found comfort in the sound of your voice.” And damn, why had it taken her so long to bring that up? She’d almost forgotten about the bag she’d dragged all the way out here, but she reached for it now, opening it for him to see.

There were tapes. Dozens of them, zipped into neat little plastic bags, each one marked and dated. On top sat an antiquated tape recorder, which she’d ‘borrowed’ from the lab over two decades ago and refused to feel guilty about having kept. With everything Dale had given to the Bureau, surely they wouldn’t blame her for it.

Almost reverently, Dale picked up the recorder, turning it around in his hands. His fingers hovered above the controls, but froze before they could make contact. Instead he lifted a tape from the top of the pile. “July 1984,” he read, then grimaced. “Doesn’t even feel that long ago. But I’m not that person anymore, Diane.”

“Are any of us?” She shrugged. “All I know is that Dale was my friend, and I can still see parts of him in you. Maybe listening to these will help you remember. If you want, we can listen together sometime.”

Dale’s chin dipped down slowly. “I’d like that… sometime.” With sparse, careful movements, he leaned back towards the bag to replace what he’d taken. “Albert said they don’t sell tapes anymore. That phones can do all these things now.” He folded his hands into his lap again. “Maybe I should get a phone to talk to.”

“Maybe you should,” Diane said. “I’ll talk to Albert, see what we can do.” It wasn’t hard to imagine his reaction; he’d call it a recipe for disaster, exposing Dale to all the horrors of this brave new world so soon, but then Albert had always been underwhelmed by the world’s capacity for goodness. Diane thought the benefits might just outweigh the risks, but of course it wasn’t her decision alone. Still pondering, she picked up Dale’s glass from where she’d left it on the floor.

“ _Oh_. Can I...” Dale clutched at the water like it was something precious, practically chugging it down without stopping for breath. He snapped out of it at the look on her face. “Sorry.” Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he looked guilty, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Albert told me not to do that. It’s just… I went thirsty for a very long time.”

“There was no water where you were?” She blinked. “Or… food?”

“There was coffee. Sometimes. Not often in consumable form.” He took a few more sips, without enthusiasm now. “Apart from that, nothing.”

Diane tried to imagine half a lifetime without the comforts of food; for Dale, that had to have been slow torture in itself. “Well, if you’re hungry, there’s a whole smorgasbord of baked goods in the kitchen. I heard Sheriff Moran went above and beyond.”

“I know.” Dale finished his water, allowed her to take the glass from his hands. “I didn’t have the heart to tell her, but… I can’t. Not yet. My body never lacked for food, but my mind’s still thrown in a loop by it. I had some toast this morning, but…” He winced. “I’ll try again in a couple of hours.”

She nodded. “Small steps. Your mind will figure it out. Just give it time.”

Dale stared out the window, his eyes unfocused. “Albert said something similar, but I couldn’t tell if he meant it, or if he just wanted to give me hope, or both. He said… the human mind is stronger than we think. That it finds ways to protect itself. Shutting out BOB’s consciousness wasn’t a sign of weakness but integrity, he said; BOB may have found a foothold in my body, but I denied him entry to my soul.” He gave her a helpless look. “He also said of himself, and I quote: ‘I’m still naïve enough to believe the sun shines out of your ass, Cooper, so I can’t guarantee I’m not biased as hell’.”

That might be the most unreservedly Albert statement she’d heard all day, and it almost convinced her they’d make it through. “Well, in that case I’m biased too. I’ve always known you could see things the rest of us couldn’t, and that some of those things didn’t give a damn about kindness. But I never doubted yours, and I still don’t think my instincts are wrong. As for Albert, whatever he blurts out in the throes of self-deprecation, I can’t see him ignoring his judgment on this either.” In the past, maybe, but not anymore. “You can trust us, Dale. We won’t let you down, and we won’t let you slide. Not if we can help it.”

Dale’s eyes held the faint promise of hope - not quite solid yet, but getting there. “Thank you. I’ll… try to remember.” His head sagged, pale fingers raking through his hair, and Diane fought the impulse to cover them with her own.

“Tired?” Not that the answer wasn’t plain on his face, but any shred of agency she could offer him, she should. “Wanna try and get some rest?”

Dale shrugged weakly. “Yes, I… could sleep now, I think.” He rubbed his forehead, suddenly self-conscious. “Diane, do you think you could...”

“Go?” Diane guessed, finishing the sentence so that he wouldn’t have to. “All right. We can talk more later, I’ll let you have some privacy…”

“ _No.”_ His hand shot out, blanketing hers as if to keep her from leaving. “I just meant… Is Albert still there? Could you ask him to come?” And there was that glimmer of hope again, trickling in like sunlight through clouds.

She smiled, allowing herself to feel some of it too. “He’s in the other room. Maybe asleep, maybe not. I made him promise he’d lie down, but knowing him, that just means he’s been glaring at the ceiling, compiling a mental catalog of all the house’s defects.” She tilted her head, trying to parse Dale’s expression. “Want to go and have a look?”

Dale nodded, accepting the offered arm to help him to his feet. His bare toes against the floorboards made him look even more vulnerable, but there was a stubborn set to his jaw that hadn’t been there before.

“Albert said this place is Harry’s,” he muttered, his arm locked through hers as they padded along. “But Harry left a long time ago, and Albert doesn’t know where he is; he thinks Lucy knows, but she won’t tell him.” Shaky sigh. “It’s strange. This house has been empty for years, yet every square inch of it still feels like Harry. It took me a day to stop waiting for him to step into the room.” His shoulder grazed hers when they reached the door. “I think… Harry and Albert were close at one point. That’s one thing to be grateful for, I suppose.”  

Diane gave him a sidelong look, wondering if the wistfulness in his tone meant what she thought it did. She met his eyes briefly - _still want to go in?_ \- then turned the knob with no real attempt at caution. This was Albert, after all. For him to have listened to her and gone to sleep would be…

… less unlikely than she’d thought, apparently, judging by the sound of none-too-subtle snoring. He’d made no effort to get comfortable: splayed on his back, fully clothed, down to the shoes he hadn’t bothered to remove, he looked like he’d passed out on the spot.

Beside her, Dale took a step forward, a wan smile playing around his mouth. “It appears your presence here has a relaxing effect, Diane.”

“Looks like it.” And a kick-ass one at that, because Albert hadn’t even taken off his reading glasses, a magazine still draped across his chest. Looked like he hadn’t counted on falling asleep either. “Do you want to go back…?” She gestured to the other room, but Dale shook his head.

“I’d like to stay here, if that’s all right.” Another few steps, and he was standing over Albert, gently lifting the glasses from his face. Albert’s mouth puckered, but he didn’t wake up, and for a moment she saw Dale’s throat working, his hand hovering inches from Albert’s cheek. Then he swallowed and stepped back. “I can take the other couch. Would you…” He put the glasses on a cupboard, then wrapped his arms around himself. “... sit with me? Please?”

“Of course.” Diane walked over to the empty couch, made herself comfortable among the mound of pillows. “C’mon. If you put your head down here, you should still have plenty of room to stretch out. Good thing your Sheriff Truman loved great big pieces of furniture.”

“He loved things with a soul,” Dale said, swaying slightly as he crossed the floor. Sitting down, the thin line of his mouth betrayed the depth of his exhaustion; not that she could have missed it before.

“He loved you. Didn’t he?” She didn’t say _maybe that’s why he left after he lost you,_ even if she was thinking it. No point in torturing him with unanswerable questions.

Dale pulled up his legs, easing himself onto his side. “I… don’t know?” He sounded like the question surprised him. “He loved Josie, so I never asked. Which was for the best, probably. Harry’s love is pure and boundless. Better that it’s spent elsewhere than on me.” His head sagged against Diane’s thigh; from this angle, she could see every strand of white in his hair, every wrinkle furrowing his temples. It was a sight she’d never thought she’d see again, and it filled her with a tenderness too deep for words. But words were all any of them had, so damned if she wasn’t going to try anyway.

“Dale… whether you think you deserve it or not, _I_ love you. Albert loves you. Harry Truman may have loved you. You’ve inspired a great deal of feelings in a great deal of people. Whatever else happened in those twenty-five years, a history like that doesn’t just go away.”

“Maybe not,” he admitted. “But I’m no longer the person who inspired those feelings, Diane. And I might not be the person you think I’ve become.” His voice was raw with weariness and doubt.

“I’m willing to take that chance, or I wouldn’t be here.” She nodded towards the other couch. “And I can’t speak for Albert, but I think we both know what his answer would be.”

“What answer is that?” Dale was struggling to focus; he looked like he’d sleep the second he closed his eyes.

“The same as mine, but with more profanity?” Diane mustered a smile. She brushed a stubborn lock from Dale’s forehead, trying to coax his eyes into closing themselves. “We just got you back, Dale. Don’t you dare think we’ll stop fighting for you now.”

*

**Author's Note:**

> _there's more than one answer to these questions_   
>  _pointing me in a crooked line_   
>  _and the less I seek my source for some definitive_   
>  _the[closer I am to fine](https://youtu.be/HUgwM1Ky228)_


End file.
